Francois Gautier: It is false to say that Jesus is the only 'true' god.

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Mon, 2 Jan 2006 12:13:29 +0530

devishakti_india

Fwd: [VaidikaVillage] A Must read article

 

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/dec/30franc.htm

 

Francois Gautier writes to Dr John Dayal, member, National

Integration Council, in response to the letter he wrote Prime

Minister Manmohan Singh:

 

Dear John Dayal,

 

I am a Westerner and a born Christian. I was mainly brought up in

Catholic schools, my uncle Father Guy Gautier a gem of a man, was

the parish head of the beautiful Saint Jean de Montmartre church in

Paris.My father Jacques Gautier, a famous artist in France, and a

truly good person if there ever was one, was a fervent Catholic all

his life, went to church nearly every day and lived by his Christian

values.

 

There are certain concepts in Christianity I am proud of: Charity for

others, the equality of social systems in many Western countries,

Christ's message of love and compassion.

 

Yet, when I read your letter to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh,

apropos the inaugural meeting of the National Integration Council, I

was a little uneasy.

 

First, you seem to assume that you are speaking for the entire

Christian community in India. But I know many Christians in this

country, and they never voice the grievances you so loudly proclaim.

In fact, I have found that most Christians in India are not only

happy to live in this country of traditional tolerance, but that

they are also different from many Christians in the world: More

multicultural and ecumenist in spirit, maybe.

 

Then, you speak of the marginalised Dalits. I agree that there are

still unforgivable atrocities committed against Dalits, although

very often they are done by backward castes themselves. I remember

during the tsunami in Pondichery, how the Vanniars, an OBC caste,

stopped the Dalits from a coastal hamlet from crossing the Vanniars'

part of the village to bury their dead, as the Dalits' cremation

ground had been submerged.

 

At the same time, my 30 years in India have taught me that nowhere

in the world has there been so much effort to rectify a wrong --

from 1947 onwards. This resulted in a Dalit, the late K R Narayanan,

born in a poor village of Kerala, to be elected President of India,

one of the highest posts in this nation.

 

Has a black man ever been President of the United States?

 

Reservations for Dalits have made it possible for them to access

education and jobs regardless of their merits -- and this is a

unique feature of India today.

 

 

You continue by saying that 'the agenda draftsmen of papers for NIC

seem to believe that forcible and fraudulent conversions (to

Christianity) are the main cause of civil unrest in tribal and other

rural areas'. And you retort that 'this is a malicious myth

propagated by obscurantist and fundamentalist -- and often violent --

political groups'. Meaning Hindu groups, of course.

 

I have to disagree with you on two points.

 

One, I have seen with my own eyes how conversions in India are not

only highly unethical -- that is, using unethical means of

conversion -- but also that they threaten a whole way of life,

erasing centuries of tradition, customs, wisdom, teaching people to

despise their own religion and look Westwards to a culture which is

alien to them, with disastrous results.

 

Look at what happened to countries like Hawaii, or to the

extraordinary Aztec culture in South America, after Portuguese and

Spanish missionaries took over.

 

Look how the biggest drug problems in India are found in the

Northeast, or how Third World countries which have been totally

Christianised have lost all moorings and bearing and are drifting

away without nationalism and self-pride.

 

Second, I think people like you show very little gratitude to that

Hindu ethos which has seeped into Indian Christian consciousness. It

is because of that Hindu ethos, which accepts that god may manifest

himself at different times in different names, that Christians were

welcomed in India in the first century. Indeed, the Syrian Christians

of Kerala constituted the first Christian community in the world.

 

It is because of this inbred tolerance in Hinduism that Christianity

and many other persecuted minorities in the world flourished and

practiced their religion in peace in India throughout the centuries.

 

But how do Christians thank the Hindus? When the Jesuits arrived in

India with Vasco de Gama, they committed terrible persecutions,

particularly in Goa, crucifying Brahmins, marrying local girls

forcibly to Portuguese soldiers, razing temples to build churches and

splitting the Kerala Christian community in two.

 

'Goa Inquisition was most merciless and cruel'

 

And today, people like you continue ranting against Hindus and

promoting unethical conversions, using the massive power of the

dollars donated by ignorant Westerners, who do not know that their

money is used to lure innocent tribals and Dalits, who still possess

that all encompassing acceptance of all gods, towards another

religion. Furthermore, you use false statistics, saying for instance

that nuns have been raped. You no doubt allude to the Jhabua rape

case, when courts have shown that these nuns were not raped by

Hindus, but by Christian tribals.

 

I know, I went there and interviewed these innocent souls.

 

And who has been hijacking of the educational system in India? Not

the Hindus, as you accuse, but the Christians, who control much of

the higher education in India and by subtle and not so subtle means,

poison the minds of the students, teaching them to look down on

their own culture and look up to whatever is Western -- even if it

has already failed in the West.

 

In how many schools and hospitals in India today, the Bible is read

at the beginning of each day, each session? Would you approve of the

Bhagavad Gita, the Bible of 850 million Hindus being read in

Christian schools in the West to Christian students and nurses?

 

Finally, when you say: 'God bless you, you Government, and God bless

India', which god are you talking about? Is it Jesus Christ? But the

message of Christ was one of love, of respecting others' cultures

and creed -- not of utilising unethical means for converting people.

 

It is false to say that Jesus is the only 'true' god. As Hindus

rightly believe, the Divine has manifested himself throughout the

ages under different names and identities, whether it is Christ,

Buddha, Krishna or Mohammad.

 

Let this be the motto of the National Integration Council of India.

 

Francois Gautier